[am-translate] The Ethiopian millennium Gift project

[Daniel Yacob]

Tefera and Others,

Quickly on language updates, I found that translations, including for Amharic,
are updated each day into "language packages".  These language package you
can update on your system with a command like:

  deb http://people.ubuntu.com/~pitti/langpacks/daily/dapper-updates 

which will update all languages.  I haven't tried it yet though.  The
thread is here:

  https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-translators/2006-June/000686.html

The command, in a script or by itself, can be cronned to run daily
automatically.

On keyboard short-cut keys, it will be IM system dependent, GTK+
vs SCIM will likely have different ways if possible at all (I remember
discussing this with GTK people some years ago and they thought it
wasn't necessary...).

One news is that I was asked at the last minute to make a presentation
at the World Bank in Washington, DC.  There are some Ethiopians there
who want to support localization efforts.  Exactly at what level and
other details I don't know yet.  So I've put other things on hold to
prepare a presentation for Thursday.  It would be great if they could
hire some translators or provide any other support.

If they do launch a project it will have to be very well defined,
detailing the exact outputs.  Right now it is still uncertain what
must be transalted to produce a minimal suitable localization for
a new language.  I did post to the ubuntu-translators email list to
ask, but did not receive a reply.  I'll keep searching and asking
in different places.

I recommend waiting to contact Dr Taye until a project is exactly
defined, we need to work on this -sponsored or not sponsored. I
mean here having a list of items to be translated, their sequence,
target platform (Ubuntu, Edubuntu, both?), IM support, font support,
calendar support, do we seek full support of ubuntu in the scope of
the project -initial stage or later stage, or just our own ISOs,
can we estimate any time and cost to complete the work, to maintain
it? Dr Taye may want these details to know what it is that he would
be supporting.  On the other hand he may be willing to support
the project just in principal.  Potential participants and sponsors
would also want these details clearly laid out.

Anyway, I'll report back Thursday night if any good news comes from
the WB.  Even if it does, it can take them 3 months - 1 year to
begin their support.

cheers,

/Daniel